[David Brinza]

Yes, FIRST with >4,000 teams (a number WAY less than Dean's goal ) will be a very different animal.

The number of regional events will grow, team waiting lists for popular regionals will grow, the qualification criteria for going the Championships will get tougher (it wasn't long ago that design awards qualified a team for the Championship). I suspect many, many, more teams will never see the Championship venue. You cannot arbitrarily grow the size of the Championship: the event becomes unwieldy and even unnattractive to teams (imagine only playing four or five qualifying matches with only 1 out of 6 or 7 teams moving into the elimination rounds).

Maybe FIRST will create Divisions or Classes to separate the large, powerhouse, veteran teams from the rookies, or smaller teams with limited resources. Perhaps "Super Regional Tournaments" (North, South, East, West?) will be held on the road to a Final Championship. That can add another two weeks or so to the competition season.

Indeed, it will be interesting to watch FIRST grow. As FIRST participants, we need to make sure that in a few years we don't look back and think of these as "the good ol' days of FIRST".

Our ideas and opinions can strongly influence the direction of FIRST, if you see a way something that can be done better: speak up!